


Twenty-nine. Thirty.

by shieldivarius



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-08
Updated: 2013-09-08
Packaged: 2017-12-25 23:34:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/958921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shieldivarius/pseuds/shieldivarius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil couldn’t make the call to send them in. They made it for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twenty-nine. Thirty.

“We’re _fucking making the call, Coulson, we’re not fucking making you make the fucking call._ ”

Phil’s fist clenched tighter into itself, braced against the edge of the console in front of him, so white-knuckled the nails felt like they were drilling through, as though any second the tips of his fingers might burst out of the back side of his hand. 

“We are five miles out, Specialist Barton. You will hold your position until back-up has arrived,” he said, voice even, professional, eyes locked on the steady green dots on the radar screen in front of him. Nearly atop of one other from his view. Twenty perilous, vertical feet distant in reality. Five miles away from the safe house he was secreted in.

His voice was professional. The call was not.

Tally marks, invisible maybe, but real, scraped in as scars on his heart, started re-drawing themselves in his mind. All the way to twenty-eight, a burden he’d been carrying for nearly ten years without managing to make it crawl any higher.

They would not be twenty-nine and thirty. Not them. Not today. 

_“Sixty seconds, Phil.”_

Static burst over the line, a rumble shooting through his chair a moment later when the ripples of the bomb reached their position. Pain in the side of his hand, an echo in the quiet room of the banging of his fist on the table.

_“Forty-five,”_ said Natasha’s strong, sure voice a moment later. Not a waver, as though she didn’t stand trembling on a precipice she might not come back from.

“Don’t you fucking go in there!” Phil barked, other hand flying up to grip at the speaker on his ear. The plastic cracked. Static buzzed again for a moment.

The line went dead. Dead air, not static, and Phil’s heart leapt up into his throat and he moaned, thumbing through channels, trying to get back to them.

They—his backup, the Director, whoever the hell was monitoring this mission—were _not_ going to cut him off. Let him deal with the fucking consequences of his unprofessional behaviour later, he was _not_ losing control of this operation.

“Come on,” he muttered into the static of the in-between channels. “ _Please_ ,” he whispered, and he knew he sounded desperate now but there was no one here to hear him if he fell apart, anyway. 

His stressed heart pounded rapid beats, and his face felt hot and prickly, a drip of sweat making its way into his eye. “ _Please_.” 

Flashing on the console caught his attention. Natasha’s dot moving, followed a moment later by Clint’s. Phil slammed his fist on the radio. “Fuck, _don’t do this to me!_ ” And if he was screaming, well, it worked.

The channel came back to life.

_“—Love you, Phil. We love you,”_ Natasha said, and it sounded like she’d been repeating it.

Phil choked, and now his eyes were burning, more than his face. Another drop of sweat slid down, this one along his nose. “Agent Romanoff— ‘Tasha, please—”

_“Standby for evac, hey?”_ Clint said, his voice cracking on the end of the hopeful phrase. _“I’ve got her. We’ve got each other.”_

“You don’t—“

_“We do. We’re not going to ask you to stay on the line.”_

But she left the channel open, and he could hear her breathing speed up, and Clint grunting as he ran on his twisted ankle.

Phil listened. He stood by. 

Phil listened, because the back up they’d sent in was still four miles out. 

Phil listened, because there was no way of getting there any faster—they’d tried. 

Phil listened, because he hadn’t been able to make the call, and they’d done his job for him.

Phil listened, because this was supposed to be a routine mission, but had gone FUBAR and turned into a live warzone in the blink of an eye.

Natasha’s comm went out first, her dot vanishing from the screen.

 _“I’ve got her,”_ Clint said again, but it was a whisper, and strained, and still the first thing he’d heard from them for nearly half an hour.

“Back up is a quarter of a mile out,” Phil said.

A sharp bark of laughter from Clint. 

A snarled threat at Natasha in a language Phil spoke but didn’t have the presence of mind to identify right now, barely heard through Clint’s microphone but clear.

Clint’s annoyed shout of pain, and static as someone ripped the piece from his ear. Two gunshots. Phil trembled, pressed the earphones to the sides of his head.

Clint’s dot flickered and disappeared from the screen. Static, progressively louder, buzzed in his ears.

Hands shaking, Phil lifted the headset from his ears and laid it down on the console in front of him, unseeing. His chair shook, another, larger bomb falling on the area.

Twenty-nine.

Thirty.

**Author's Note:**

> http://shieldivarius.tumblr.com


End file.
